Mortgage Acts and Practices - Advertising Rule #00010

November 10, 2010

Submission Number:

00010

Commenter:

Jacqueline Gorbey

State:

Pennsylvania

Initiative Name:

Mortgage Acts and Practices - Advertising Rule

Advertising agencies should be removed from the definition of “persons” covered by the proposed rule. The responsibility for complying with the rule should fall on the lenders, brokers or agents that are promoting the product itself. An advertising agency that has been retained for the creative process or promotional placement of the advertisement should not be held liable for the representations included in the advertisement. An advertising agency’s area of expertise is not the mortgage market and imposing civil penalties on the advertising agencies does not further the purpose of the rule. Further, it would impose unnecessary costs and efforts on advertising agencies to require them to retain all of the communications that may be covered by the rule. An advertising agency’s sole purpose is to create and place commercial communications for a wide variety of clients. Thus, it would be burdensome to require that the agencies retain and keep track of all communications that might violate this rule.